{"id":13593,"date":"2023-10-14T10:54:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T10:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/?p=13593"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:03","slug":"gmat-fast-math-part-1-of-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/blog\/gmat-fast-math-part-1-of-5\/","title":{"rendered":"FAST Math for the GMAT (Part 1 of 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"division-sign-gmat-fast-math-part-1-of-5-stacey-koprince\"Guess what?\u00a0You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free\u2014we\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m pretty lazy when it comes to doing math on paper. Blame constant access to Excel and the calculator on my phone\u2026but I\u2019m completely over doing math on paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you give me a problem that\u2019s going to require half a page of calculations\u2026well, I\u2019m not going to want to do that problem. But on the GMAT Quant section, I don\u2019t get a calculator, so how can I still get a 99<\/span>th<\/span> percentile score while staying true to my lazy-math desires?<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s do some Fast Math!<\/span><\/p>\n

Principle #1: Don\u2019t Do Math till You HAVE to<\/b><\/h4>\n

Sure, write down that equation in the question stem. And, sure, set up the math that you would need to do. BUT. If any of the math looks annoying, <\/span>don\u2019t do it yet<\/span><\/i>. Be patient. Wait a little longer to see whether you really need to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, I want you to tell me what 5<\/sup>\u204412 <\/sub>of 81 is. Oh, and then I want you to multiply that result by 240.<\/span><\/p>\n

5<\/sup>\u204412<\/sub> of 81\u2026hmm. 81 isn\u2019t divisible by 12\u2026but the two numbers do share 3 as a factor, so I can at least simplify a bit and then maybe I\u2019ll need to do some longhand multiplication and division\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Stop right there. On the GMAT, if I\u2019m doing longhand multiplication or division, I\u2019ve missed something. Back up. Look at the whole problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the <\/span>full<\/span><\/i> math that I asked you to do:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

That 81 can\u2019t completely cancel out the 12\u2026but the 240 can! Check it out:<\/span>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s see, 5 times 81\u2026<\/p>\n

Wait! When multiplying a string of numbers, always look to pair 5\u2019s and 2\u2019s first. Why? 5\u2019s and 2\u2019s create 10\u2019s (or multiples of) and those are a whole lot easier to multiply into the rest of the numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

(5)(20) = 100<\/span><\/p>\n

(100)(81) = 8,100<\/span><\/p>\n

Done!<\/span><\/p>\n

Whenever you\u2019ve got a multi-step math problem, try to set up as much as you reasonably can and look to simplify before you even think about solving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, when you can\u2019t simplify any further, don\u2019t just do the remaining math left to right. Take a moment to look at the big picture<\/span>\u2014<\/span>see whether you can rearrange or approach the math in a way that makes the calculations easier.<\/span><\/p>\n

There you have it: Principle #1 for Fast Math. Next time<\/a>, we\u2019ll discuss Principle #2\u2014see you then!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

KEEP READING:\u00a0<\/strong>FAST Math for the GMAT (Part 2)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a> absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"stacey-koprince\"<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada.<\/strong> Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guess what?\u00a0You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free\u2014we\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m pretty lazy when it comes to doing math on paper. Blame constant access to Excel and the calculator on my phone\u2026but I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,52871,930,2,8],"tags":[53022,53023],"yst_prominent_words":[57219,53868,53790,53653,57220,54593,57221,53877,53635,53781,57218,55049,53997,57216,53704,53784,53867],"class_list":["post-13593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-quant-on-gmat","tag-fast-math","tag-fast-math-for-the-gmat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13593"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19587,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13593\/revisions\/19587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13593"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}